part with perfect fidelity: for she teaches us, both that the apostle flourished under the government of the Roman Emperors, and that exactly five other forms of government had preceded the Imperial.

Thus is my second position firmly established, that the sixth head of the apocalyptic wild beast was the Roman Emperorship.

2. Let it then only be allowed, that these two positions rest upon the firm basis of inspired exposition, even the exposition of the interpreting angel; and we shall soon perceive to what conclusions they will lead us, while under their guidance we float down the stream of prophecy.

(1.) For, if the sixth head be the Roman Emperorship, the individual administrator of which for the time being (in whatever part of the Empire may be his local habitation) bears the official title of Emperor of the Romans: then this sixth head, which had begun to exist in the time of St. John, did not cease to exist until the year 1806; when, like its five predecessors, it fell, by the formal abdication of an official title which no sovereign took up after this formal abdication.

(2.) But, as, in the economy of nature, an animal cannot live in a headless state; so neither can an Empire, which (agreeably to the common ideas of all nations) may be aptly symbolized by some beast which it is thought to resemble, continue to live in its distinctive condition of an Empire unless it have a presiding head or acknowledged paramount form of government.

Hence,

Hence, in the hieroglyphic of the Roman hydra, the seventh head must have sprung up, either before or synchronically with the fall of the sixth: that is to say, in the ordinary language of words, some new paramount form of government, different from the sixth form, must have arisen either before or synchronically with the regular abolition of the sixth form. For, unless this be granted, the Empire must have sunk into a state of allegorical death, because the sixth form will have fallen without being immediately succeeded by the seventh: and, although we are told that it is destined to sink into this precise state of allegorical death; yet the predetermined period of its death is placed by the prophet, not between the fall of the sixth and the rise of the seventh form, but between the fall of the seventh and the rise of that eighth form which is to be one of the preceding seven. Now the characteristic marks of the seventh head or form as collected partly from the hieroglyphic and partly from the angel's interpretation of it, are these: futurity with respect to the time of the apostle; brevity of duration; and excision by the sword of foreign violence. All these marks centre with a fatal accuracy in the Francie Emperorship; which additionally wears the badge of a Roman head, by having extended its sway over the greatest part of the Latin Empire, and by having obtained the sovereignty of Rome. But the Francic Emperorship, thus characterised as a Roman head, and thus bearing all the predicted marks of the SEVENTH Roman head, sprung up two years before

the

the fall of the sixth head: and it sufficiently vindicated its claim to be admitted as a new and distinct head, by its bearing a new and distinct official title. Nor is this the whole; if we do not admit it as a new and distinct head, we shall make the hieroglyphical wild beast to have been headless ever since the fall of the sixth; for, if the Francic Emperorship be not the seventh, we shall vainly seek any other power which may be said to have sustained its predicted character since the year 1806.

.

Thus are we compelled, both by circumstantial marks, by chronological origin, and by symbolical necessity itself, to pronounce the Francic Emperorship that short-lived and sword-lopped seventh head of the Roman beast, which was future or not yet come in the days of St. John *.

(3.) The prophecy goes on to state, that, after the violent excision of the seventh head, the wild beast should die, or the Empire (as an Empire) sink into a state of non-existence: and the plain reason of this allegorical death is; that, since the, wild beast had no more than seven heads, when six of those heads had fallen and when the seventh had been lopped by the sword, he would be headless, and therefore (agreeably to the economy of nature) he could not but be represented as dead.

Of such a symbolical prediction, now that we have learned from the interpreting angel the import of the symbol itself, we can have no difficulty in giving the

Rev. xvii. 10.

literal

literal exposition. When the seventh form of Roman government, which we have identified with the Francic Emperorship, shall have been destroyed by the sword of foreign violence: no new paramount form shall spring up in its stead, because the forms are expressly limited to seven; but the headless Empire shall sink, as an Empire, into a state of political non-existence; no one sovereignty within its limits, either by official name or by actually predominating power, standing up as a head during this intermediate or interregnal period.

But such, at this very moment, is the precise condition of the Roman Empire: a condition, to which it was never heretofore subject even from its commencement under Romulus. Hence, we both have the evidence of facts, that we are now living in the intermediate period of the wild beast's death or of the Empire's political non-existence and we likewise, from this identical evidence, may derive an additional argument to prove, that we have not been mistaken in identifying the Francic Emperorship with the short-lived seventh head. For the excision of the seventh head was to be followed by the headless or defunct condition of the hieroglyphical wild beast; that is to say, in verbal phraseology, by the headless or politically non-existent condition of the Empire. But this headless or politically non-existent condition of the Empire (a condition too strongly marked to be misunderstood, because hitherto unknown) has chronologically followed the excision of the Francic Emperorship by the sword. Therefore

the

the Francic Emperorship must be the lopped seventh head *.

* I would specially request the cautious reader well to consider the naked palmary FACT, that the Roman Empire has at present within its limits no paramount or precedental form of government which is acknowledged by the several Latin kingdoms as the chief of the whole Empire; or, in other words (to exhibit the same idea through the medium of a pictured hieroglyphic), that the Roman wild beast has at present no head. The FACT itself is indisputable, whatever may be thought of my interpretation. Let the reader then weigh this remarkable FACT: and, when he has done so, let him try whether he can account for it in any other manner than that which has here been adopted.

According to the prophet, the Roman wild beast has seven successive heads: after the fall of the six first, and after the lopping away of the seventh by the sword, he of course becomes headless; and is therefore said to sink into a state of political death: but, in due time, he rises again from this state of death; and, under an eighth form of government which yet is declared to be the same as one of the preceding seven heads, he commences (his deadly wound having been healed) a new term of reëxistence.

Such is the prophecy: and now, in agreement with this prophecy, we have to account for AN EXTRAORDINARY FACT, not a mere speculation but AN ABSOLUTE FACT, which at the present moment we may behold with our own eyes. The FACT is this: the Roman Empire, after subsisting under seven successive heads, has now NO HEAD; for the first time, after the lapse of full twenty five centuries, it is HEADLESS. For this FACT we must account; or else we must at once give up the prophecy, as plainly apocryphal. The sole merit, which I claim for the interpretation here advanced, is this: it at once explains, and is built upon, AN UNDOUBTED MATTER OF FACT

WHICH CAN NEITHER BE DISSEMBLED NOR CONTROVERTED;

the Roman Empire has now NO HEAD.

(4) From